MAGA Billionaire Donates $10K to Alex Pretti’s Family

The political firestorm around the killing of Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti just got even hotter — and this time, the spark came from Wall Street.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, already under national scrutiny for bankrolling the ICE agent who shot and killed mother-of-three Renee Good earlier this month, has now given another $10,000 — this time to Pretti’s grieving family.

And the reaction has been instant. Fierce. And furious.

Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and longtime VA caregiver, was gunned down Saturday while protesting the Trump administration’s stepped-up ICE operations in Minneapolis. Witnesses say he was filming officers. Unarmed. Calm. And then suddenly shot.

“He was helping people his whole life,” said a coworker at the VA hospital. “He dies trying to help again. It’s sickening.”

His GoFundMe exploded past $1 million in less than 48 hours.

Then came Ackman’s donation — the same amount he handed to the ICE shooter who killed Renee Good.

And that’s when the anger surged.

Ackman insists his donations aren’t political. Just “a commitment to helping people caught in legal crises,” he said.

But critics aren’t buying it.

“You can’t play both sides of a killing spree carried out by federal agents,” said one Minneapolis protester. “Pick a lane, Bill.”

Even Minneapolis Mayor Carla Bradshaw weighed in, calling Ackman’s defense fund support “morally incomprehensible during a national human rights crisis.”

The billionaire began attracting heat earlier in January after donating $10,000 to Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot Renee Good in front of witnesses. The shooting rattled the city and ignited protests before the Pretti tragedy even unfolded.

Ackman later claimed he attempted to donate to Good’s family too, but their fundraiser had already closed.

“To say that doesn’t ease the sting,” said a neighborhood activist. “This isn’t charity. It’s reputation management.”

Trump’s second-term immigration crackdown has turned Minneapolis into a federal occupation zone, with ICE sweeps intensifying almost daily. Residents describe fear, helicopters, late-night raids, and agents patrolling neighborhoods where they’ve never been seen before.

“This is not law enforcement. This is intimidation,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said last week.

Ellison also blasted the official DHS narrative claiming Pretti posed a threat.

“That story is falling apart by the hour,” he said. “Video doesn’t lie. People don’t lie. Agencies with something to hide do.”

Vigils for Pretti quickly became mass protests in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles.

“He died begging for justice. Now we can’t let that death be quiet,” said one organizer.

Celebrities and CEOs have also stepped in. Tech leaders called the shooting “state-sponsored brutality.” Nurses’ unions demanded federal oversight. And congressional Democrats have begun urging investigations into Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has aggressively defended the raids.

That’s the mystery fueling social media right now.

Why does the billionaire keep placing himself squarely in the middle of America’s most explosive federal shootings?

One Minneapolis resident put it simply:

“This city is bleeding. And here comes a billionaire sprinkling ten-thousand-dollar checks like he’s handing out Band-Aids.”

The protests will grow. The political fallout will spread. And as long as Minneapolis keeps burying unarmed civilians, the accountability questions will only get louder.

Right now, the city is united around one message:

“We’re done being targets.”